


Down Time (in the Shade Lime)

by cactusthespacecat



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast), The College Tapes (Podcast)
Genre: I have to tag this later, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29799672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactusthespacecat/pseuds/cactusthespacecat
Summary: Post College Tapes and just fully yearning because I'm :yaknow:This is just Adam and Caleb chilling and napping in a sunbeam and playing Animal Crossing.A little dash of hurt/comfort without the hurt or the comfort because Adam has a nightmare.As per usual, I have not read this so admire the spicy formatting,,,
Relationships: Adam Hayes/Caleb Michaels
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Down Time (in the Shade Lime)

**Author's Note:**

> :yaknowyaknowyaknow:  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4BRRD8dfFfnJL5Gf60geSS?si=o0dY9JwZTimtsdjYiWTGwg&utm_source=copy-link

Adam mumbled as Caleb shifted underneath him, all grumbly and hoarse with morning voice.

“Hey, Adam?” Caleb whispered, trying to pry the Switch out from Adam’s hands. Adam clutched it tighter, burying his face further into Caleb’s chest.

“Oh, fuck right off.” Caleb mumbled, a smile plastered over his whole face as his heart melted at the sight of Adam. Fucking… Adam. With his black hair all messed up and everywhere, his eyebrows furrowed at being woken up. Beautiful, but in the way that a still life painting of fruit is beautiful? Caleb was as agnostic as they come, but the way that Adam was just… built different? It almost made him believe there had to be some great master behind it.

The only difference was that Adam was NOT a painting of fruit, and right now, he wasn’t even the “still” part of “still life”. 

“Caleb, I told you that if you woke me up one more time,” he said, starting to get up. “-I would find a way to literally-”

Caleb rolled over, crushing Adam underneath him on the bed, and went limp.

Adam didn’t stand a chance. Caleb’s weight and size enveloped him completely and the both of them let out a deflated sigh.

“You were saying?” 

Adam made some noises that definitely SOUNDED like curses, but his whole face was covered in Caleb’s top half and Caleb shrugged. “Well, if you remember lemme-”

He was cut off by Adam opening his mouth and biting down hard on a chunk of skin on Caleb’s chest. 

Caleb cried out in pain, but his instinct was to immediately curl into a ball, crushing Adam further.

“Oh get off,” Adam laughed. “You’re suffocating me!”

“Oh fuck, really? I’m so-”

Caleb felt a blinding spike of mirth coming from Adam, and realized too late that he was joking. Caleb was already sitting up on his knees, off of Adam and across the bed

“Oh fuck, Adam, you’re a dork.” Caleb chuckled, and then feigned a lunge towards Adam. “I should have killed you given the chance.”

Adam laughed, kicking his legs up to push Caleb further away. Caleb let himself be pushed onto his back, and lay there. 

“I’m dead, you’ve killed me, Adam Hayes” Caleb lamented melodramatically.

“Well darn. Who will wake me up and then lay on me now.”

Caleb raised his head, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Who will reach the top shelf at Walmart for you?”

“I’m sure Alice could help. In the event of your death, of course.”

“Oh fuck no, not Alice. You can’t go out with my SISTER, Adam.”

“No, no.” Adam screwed up his face, sitting up and curling into a ball. “She would be like my… queer platonic stepstool or something.”

“Or something. I see how it is.”

“I guess you just can’t die, I guess. Or I’ll use your sister for her height.”

Caleb rolled up into a sitting position with a grunt. “I guess not. Fuck, that’s gonna be so hard though.”

“Not dying?”

“Yeah, my bones already feel like they’re dissolving.” Caleb scooted back over to sit next to Adam against the pile of pillows and stuffed animals, and wrapped one arm around Adam’s shoulders to bring him onto his lap.

“It’s cuz they are, Caleb.” Adam said, like that was a perfectly normal thing to say, and Caleb pulled away from him, looking down at the only thing he could see, which was currently just the Animal Crossing loading screen.

“Hey, what?”

“Don’t your bones feel so wet, Caleb?”

“Maybe we should break up.” Caleb said, deadpan, and immediately backpedaled as he felt Adam’s pang of real fear.

“Oh fuck, Adam, I’m sorry, you know I didn’t mean it, that is NOT how I would break up with you, you know th-”

“You wouldn’t break up with me over your soggy bones?” 

Emotions were so awful and finicky, Caleb thought for the thousandth time this week as he was knocked off balance by remembering he could feel the familiar, yet overwhelming emotions. Stabs of Adam’s sickly yellow worry, his peachy pink contentment and love, and under all of it, the blue. Like a deep sea that always threatens to overflow and flood out everything else, one that Caleb always does his best to fight off.

“Of course I wouldn’t. You make my bones feel very dry.”

Adam laughed, steering his Animal Crossing character towards the ocean to start fishing. 

"Caleb "Dry Bones" Michaels." He mumbled, stretching to nestle into Caleb's chest.

"Isn't that that guy from Smash Bros or something?" 

"Or something. Dry Bones actually originated in Super Mario 3, I don't think there's a Dry Bones in Smash?" Adam did this a lot, just sort of said stuff. And Caleb was happy to hear Adam talk about something he cared about, even if it was spurred by the idea that all bones are inherently wet. 

"Could you look up if Dry Bones is in Smash?" 

Caleb grinned, already pulling out his phone. "Dry Bones Mario Smash…." He muttered, typing.

There was a second of silence where Adam fished in animal crossing, cursing a couple of times, and Caleb scrolled through search results.

It was so nice. Just to be there, to sit there, without thinking about what tomorrow held or what else they needed to be doing. Which was cleaning Adam's room but it wasn't actually that dirty, if you ignored the closet and the corners. 

"Okay so, no." Caleb reported, still scrolling. 

"Aw, man, that's such wasted potential. I can totally see the whole falling apart and coming back together animation in Smash and they're ignoring it."

"But!" Caleb continued over Adam still griping. "There are numerous articles talking about how bad Dy Bones should be in Smash, including-" There was a pause where Caleb clicked on a link and waited for it to load. "An entire twitter." 

Adam laughed.

"They're so right, could you send me to link to that account?"

Caleb laughed too, sending the link to Adam on Instagram and settling into a position where he could watch Adam play. 

When they first started hanging out, Adam never played games in front of Caleb. He got so stressed out about being watched that Caleb couldn't even watch if he tried because the aching panic feeling was so strong between them. 

But now, years later, Adam felt comfortable and stable. Even though he still got embarrassed when he messed up on something he felt should have been easy, which was a lot of things. 

Adam held himself to such high standards, which was always wild to Caleb, because Caleb had seen Adam go above and beyond and dedicate days of time to tasks that no one saw, only to be disappointed in his own result. Caleb hadn't ever been a "gifted kid", always strikingly average up until highschool, where he hit his growth spurt and found a place for the anger to go when it came to football. 

Okay so maybe he got it. Adam staying up nights at a time writing papers with no one telling him he had to except for Adam himself felt a lot like when Caleb was first trying to bulk up. Everyone else thought he was strong enough. But enough for other people didn't feel like enough for him. 

Not even now. 

Obviously Caleb wasn't playing much high school football now that he was nearly through college, and it wasn't like he was excelling in his classes. But it was in the small things. 

Like Adam.

Who had… already passed out while fishing in Animal Crossing.

Caleb grinned, and then realized with a start that once again, he could not move for fear of waking Adam up.

So he slowly, oh hell, so painstakingly slowly, grabbed the switch from Adam's hands. 

Adam's hands grabbed at the air for a second, finding Caleb's other hand and holding tight until Caleb leaned down to kiss Adam's forehead; and with a smile, the grip loosened. 

Caleb shifted again, into a more comfortable position for his neck, and in the stillness of Adam's room, fished for Adam on his Animal Crossing island and listened to music for a while. 

Adam had one of those rooms that had surround sound speakers and led lights. Caleb didn't ever get that because first Alice lived right below him, and now Sadie lived right next to him.

There was a terrible moment where he realized that maybe Adam's parents could hear the music, and maybe… other shit; before he remembered that Adam was 22 and had his own place with Caitlyn. And some other girl that Caleb had never been introduced to. 

Wait what if Caitlyn could hear…. Oh fuck.

Caleb closed his eyes and shook his head, making a mental note to apologise for every intoxicated late night he had stayed here, and then realized he hadn't caught a single fish for at least 5 minutes, and drove Adam's little avatar to the museum. 

There was a second, emptying out the new fish, that he admired the storage space in Animal Crossing, and compared to Stardew Valley? Spectacular.

He turned his head to Adam, laying on his chest, hugging his arm, and opened his mouth to say something-

And shut it again, seeing how the afternoon light lit up every part, every curve of Adam's face. His mouth was open and he was for sure drooling a puddle onto Caleb's arm, but he was… so pretty. All of the freckles looked like stars and his eyelashes cast long shadows on his face, and Caleb was so enamoured it took him a second to remember that you start with way less storage than Adam currently had in Animal Crossing, just like Stardew Valley. 

So Caleb said nothing, both because he didn't want to wake his boyfriend up, and because what he had been about to say was wrong.

Caleb always ran hot, a little sweaty even. Okay, maybe a lot sweaty. But something about the specific warmth of Adam’s room in that moment felt… different. It felt like spending an entire day swimming and getting sunburnt and then going home and passing out on the couch in the living room with the still hot sun shining on your face.

Warm. And still. Not silent, the Animal Crossing sounds and the Ricky Montgomery coming out of the speakers made sure of that. 

But still. Soft. The air felt soft. Which sounded mushy as hell, but Caleb only got so many moments to take everything in without trying to flood his brain with anything but emotions.

And he didn't get a lot of time to just watch Adam be. Be himself, not worried about the way that other people were looking at him, or what he was going to do two seconds, two minutes, two months from that moment.

Caleb loved Adam, even though feeling his feelings, especially when they were high-strung, made him want to curl into a ball.

Or maybe because that's how he made Caleb feel? It sounded weird to think about, and it's sort of the fantasy to love someone for every part of them, including every part of them, but that's how it felt. 

Caleb didn't like the way that Adam's emotions felt just because they felt nice, or just because they fit. Caleb loved the way that Adam felt next to him because he was ADAM.

And he loved Adam.

Caleb played with the same strand of hair that Adam always did, so that he didn't mess up the rest of Adam's hair and get oil in it.

And he tried to fight back the emotions that always got drowned by the emotions of other people; his own. 

The not-so-quiet voice reminding him that Adam will never feel loved, not the way that Caleb does. Caleb fought off the persistent, hateful thought that Adam will never love him like he loved Adam.

He can feel it, he can feel it all. But that didn't mean that it felt real. It felt like a dream. And in those summers without him, a-

Nightmare. Fuck.

Adam's eyebrows were screwed together and his breathing was heavy, writhing a little in Caleb's lap.

Caleb cursed silently, putting the switch on the headboard and taking a second to breathe, warding off the overwhelming and incoming waves of terror and frustration that were threatening to overtake his own brain.

He shook his head, and then shook Adam's shoulder gently. 

Adam was immediately on the defensive, his hands flying to protect his face and sliding halfway across the bed to get away. 

"Oh fuck, Adam, I'm so sorry."

"Aw, Caleb, why the fuck am I awake? I was just getting good sleep…"

Caleb breathed a sigh of relief. 

He got Adam up in time; he wasn't in the nightmare yet.

"I'm sorry, I-" Caleb started to say, then stopped.

"Answer for your crimes." Adam mumbled, already curling back up to go back to sleep.

"I just wanted to tell you how cool it would be if you started Stardew Valley with like… Animal Crossing levels of storage."

"Caleb, you're never coming over again. You only start with 20 slots in Animal Crossing." 

"It's still a game changer though, that knocks out like a whole week of like, fishing and-"

Caleb grinned at Adam, asleep again under a sunbeam from the window, and shifted himself to touch more of him without moving Adam again. Hopefully ever again.


End file.
